Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. Our Great Depression is our lives. We've been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Subscribe

Saturday, February 10, 2007

It's nearly impossible to describe how beautiful our second Just Post Roundtable is. A mixture of old and new voices, singing about children, our planet, compassion, love, and perception. This many voices in one place can only mean one thing:

We Are Powerful Beyond Comprehension. Just Imagine What We Can Do.

And it keeps growing. Andrea and Kim of The Whole Mom have been shifting their webzine's focus towards moms who are active in social justice issues, and starting with the March re-launch you'll see the Social Justice Roundtable and all of our posts on social justice featured there, too. It's an honor, sisters.

Before we get into the Just Posts, I wanted to speak for a moment about AIDS in South Africa. It's been on my mind a lot recently, and the crisis and statistics are heartbreaking.

Did you know:On average, 600 people die from AIDS each day in South Africa21.5% of the entire South African population is living with HIV. This is among the highest infection rates in the worldThe HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women is currently estimated at 27.9% nationally and 27.1% in the Eastern Cape250 babies are born HIV positive each dayThe provincial unemployment rate is 32%Because of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, the average life expectancy in South Africa is expected to drop to 36.5 years by 2010. It was 68.5 years before AIDS. 2010 is three years away.

Think for a moment about what that means. The average life expectancy has been cut nearly in half. Children in South Africa today will grow up without knowing their families, their history, their culture. It's more than a disease, it's an erosion of a culture. And the burden is left on the children. Everybody's children. Our children.

Imagine if you were the oldest person you know.

We can do more to help. Donating money to good organizations goes a long way to provide medications to keep people symptom free. Nutrition is just as critical. I could go on and on but there are many other places you can look to see how you can get involved. There is so much more to say about this, and what I've written doesn't even come close to doing it justice. I will post more about this when I return from my trip.

90 comments:

Jen,I heard Stephen Lewis speak last May and wrote about it at the time. What is so staggering is that in the west there are practically NO babies born with HIV b/c pregnant women who are HIV positive are given a round of drugs that prevents the virus' transmission to the fetus. Africa is simply too poor for the drug. So many of these deaths are prevenatble, plain and simple.

Cool! I just found you via Andrea's blog. It's so amazing that so many of us are feeling that pull to work for social justice on so many levels. I'm working on the campaign to (hopefully) secure the nomination of a woman who has worked for the UN in countries that have been ravaged by disease, poverty, and war and who would bring an amazing perspective to the House of Commons. Anyway, thank you for backing up the important work that Andrea is doing via The Whole Mom. She is one of my heroes.

My sister-in-law got aids from working at one of the state hospitals - an infected needle.

She told me that she still considers herself lucky, she has so much to live for.

There are some other good stories, well known and not so well known South-Africans sharing their status and their stories of healing with others. Communities pulling together and looking after their own.

I look forward to reading the entries for January. Thank you for starting this.

About Me

The story of a free-spirited woman who after much living had a baby and until recently was in charge of a non profit that helped to get people off the streets.
But I've left it all behind to move to the jungle and figure out a way to live more sustainably while seeing more of the world.
It took us five years and we still aren't quite sure what we are doing but we are doing it anyways.